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Ian Gilbert-2

Users - Updated documentation ...

Hi All,

I've spent a couple of days updating the docs that I did a couple of years
ago for users. This is now in docbook format as well as a pdf and I've
tried to structure it so that it could be used for elementary test scripts
as well. I have to leave this for a couple of days now but hope to go
back to it by the end of the week. I would be happy to make any
ammendments or additions then. I'd also be keen to pick brains about
specific functions but will do that as the need arises.

As before this is fairly specific to our situation but I think that it's
generic enough that others may find it useful - particularly non techs. I
will be looking at some UI stuff later in the week as well.

Address as before http://www.ethicalshopper.co.uk/~ian/ofbizdocs.html

Do let me know if you find them helpful or if there are any glaring errors.

Very best wishes

Ian Gilbert

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Sterling Okura

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

Ian, thanks for the update sir. Nice job with the documentation and screen
shots. I'll pass this on to my non-techie clients. Thank you for sharing
this resource. -sterling

-----Original Message-----
From: Ian Gilbert [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:55 AM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...

Hi All,

I've spent a couple of days updating the docs that I did a couple of years
ago for users. This is now in docbook format as well as a pdf and I've
tried to structure it so that it could be used for elementary test scripts
as well. I have to leave this for a couple of days now but hope to go
back to it by the end of the week. I would be happy to make any
ammendments or additions then. I'd also be keen to pick brains about
specific functions but will do that as the need arises.

As before this is fairly specific to our situation but I think that it's
generic enough that others may find it useful - particularly non techs. I
will be looking at some UI stuff later in the week as well.

Address as before http://www.ethicalshopper.co.uk/~ian/ofbizdocs.html

Do let me know if you find them helpful or if there are any glaring errors.

Very best wishes

Ian Gilbert

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

davidnwelton

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

In reply to this post by Ian Gilbert-2

Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
distributed with OFBiz itself.

> Ian, thanks for the update sir. Nice job with the documentation and screen
> shots. I'll pass this on to my non-techie clients. Thank you for sharing
> this resource. -sterling
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian Gilbert [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:55 AM
> To: [hidden email]
> Subject: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...
>
> Hi All,
>
> I've spent a couple of days updating the docs that I did a couple of years
> ago for users. This is now in docbook format as well as a pdf and I've
> tried to structure it so that it could be used for elementary test scripts
> as well. I have to leave this for a couple of days now but hope to go
> back to it by the end of the week. I would be happy to make any
> ammendments or additions then. I'd also be keen to pick brains about
> specific functions but will do that as the need arises.
>
> As before this is fairly specific to our situation but I think that it's
> generic enough that others may find it useful - particularly non techs. I
> will be looking at some UI stuff later in the week as well.
>
> Address as before http://www.ethicalshopper.co.uk/~ian/ofbizdocs.html
>
> Do let me know if you find them helpful or if there are any glaring errors.
>
> Very best wishes
>
> Ian Gilbert
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

--
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Jacques Le Roux

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

Administrator

From: "David Welton" <[hidden email]>

> Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
> distributed with OFBiz itself.

Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be sufficient ?

Jacques

> > Ian, thanks for the update sir. Nice job with the documentation and screen
> > shots. I'll pass this on to my non-techie clients. Thank you for sharing
> > this resource. -sterling
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Ian Gilbert [mailto:[hidden email]]
> > Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 12:55 AM
> > To: [hidden email]
> > Subject: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...
> >
> > Hi All,
> >
> > I've spent a couple of days updating the docs that I did a couple of years
> > ago for users. This is now in docbook format as well as a pdf and I've
> > tried to structure it so that it could be used for elementary test scripts
> > as well. I have to leave this for a couple of days now but hope to go
> > back to it by the end of the week. I would be happy to make any
> > ammendments or additions then. I'd also be keen to pick brains about
> > specific functions but will do that as the need arises.
> >
> > As before this is fairly specific to our situation but I think that it's
> > generic enough that others may find it useful - particularly non techs. I
> > will be looking at some UI stuff later in the week as well.
> >
> > Address as before http://www.ethicalshopper.co.uk/~ian/ofbizdocs.html
> >
> > Do let me know if you find them helpful or if there are any glaring errors.
> >
> > Very best wishes
> >
> > Ian Gilbert
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Users mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> >
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Users mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> >
>
>
> --
> David N. Welton
> - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>
> Linux, Open Source Consulting
> - http://www.dedasys.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

davidnwelton

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

> > Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
> > distributed with OFBiz itself.
>
> Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be sufficient ?

As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in
Subversion, more people would update them and add to them, as well.
However, this is a decision for Ian, who would have to release the
docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to
choose to include it.

--
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Ian Gilbert-2

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

Hi All,

I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any license but I'm not sure that
this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development community (that this doc
is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information from (wiki, production
guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the Undersun Consulting docs
etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the information. Indeed
they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have difficulties understanding
the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see them using Jira for
example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few hundred times). There is
not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is understandable because
the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have all had a considerable
technical ability and inclination.

We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of sense to write some form of
training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I was spending with people
on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this (similar books run to 5-600
pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped the traditional
'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys - it will be in the next
version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the limited way in which we
use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart and used as a test script
as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.

The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is that there are very few
end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off updating the wiki. I've used
Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that I've done and I do like
it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think might end up with a more
flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for Administrators, store clerks,
accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I have to fit this into
gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.

That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for anyone to use this in any
way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from participating in this project
it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a more professional guide
and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be better created with a number
of authors simply because the subject is so big.

Very best wishes

Ian

On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:

>>> Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>> distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>
>> Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be sufficient ?
>>
>
> As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
> float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in Subversion, more people would update
> them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who would have to release the
> docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to choose to include it.
>
> --
> David N. Welton
> - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>
>
> Linux, Open Source Consulting
> - http://www.dedasys.com/
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
>

--
Ian Gilbert
www.ethicalshopper.net
Fair trade: the alternative choice for your everyday shopping
0845 456 2429

WHAT DO YOU DRINK AT WORK?
We can supply your organisation with high quality fair trade tea and
coffee. Discounts are available for regular orders. Contact us for more
details.

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

David E. Jones

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?

Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them, and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not contributing even more.

The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either many targets or one moving target to go after...

The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component. The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.

This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site) that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never even get feedback on the documentation.

I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.

Anyway, back the real issue...

My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative. Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and better controlled.

If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.

I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.

-David

Ian Gilbert wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any license but I'm not sure that
> this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development community (that this doc
> is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information from (wiki, production
> guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the Undersun Consulting docs
> etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the information. Indeed
> they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have difficulties understanding
> the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see them using Jira for
> example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few hundred times). There is
> not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is understandable because
> the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have all had a considerable
> technical ability and inclination.
>
> We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of sense to write some form of
> training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I was spending with people
> on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this (similar books run to 5-600
> pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped the traditional
> 'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys - it will be in the next
> version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the limited way in which we
> use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart and used as a test script
> as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>
> The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is that there are very few
> end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off updating the wiki. I've used
> Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that I've done and I do like
> it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think might end up with a more
> flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for Administrators, store clerks,
> accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I have to fit this into
> gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>
> That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for anyone to use this in any
> way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from participating in this project
> it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a more professional guide
> and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be better created with a number
> of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>
> Very best wishes
>
> Ian
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>>> Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>> distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>> Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be sufficient ?
>>>
>> As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>> float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in Subversion, more people would update
>> them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who would have to release the
>> docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to choose to include it.
>>
>> --
>> David N. Welton
>> - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>
>>
>> Linux, Open Source Consulting
>> - http://www.dedasys.com/
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Users mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>>
>
>

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

BJ Freeman

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

David I agree with the site you have, even as a commercial venture.
However I believe there should be division between the code that
supports the site and the data in the site.

I ask about a help framework earlier, that this would answer. However it
is not to duplicate your data, but to put user specific help based on my
modification. I doubt my help files would be an any interest, unless my
mods are being used.

Now if you feel that part of the cost could be re-coupled for the code
segment, then I believe that should be separate from the actual support
site you maintain.

Maybe the Code could be such that all but the localize help would go to
your site.

Just some thoughts.

David E. Jones sent the following on 3/29/06 10:29 AM:

> This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>
> Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them, and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not contributing even more.
>
> The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either many targets or one moving target to go after...
>
> The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component. The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
>
> This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site) that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never even get feedback on the documentation.
>
> I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
>
> Anyway, back the real issue...
>
> My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative. Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and better controlled.
>
> If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
>
> I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.
>
> -David
>
>
>
> Ian Gilbert wrote:
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any license but I'm not sure that
>>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development community (that this doc
>>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information from (wiki, production
>>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the Undersun Consulting docs
>>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the information. Indeed
>>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have difficulties understanding
>>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see them using Jira for
>>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few hundred times). There is
>>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is understandable because
>>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have all had a considerable
>>technical ability and inclination.
>>
>>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of sense to write some form of
>>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I was spending with people
>>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this (similar books run to 5-600
>>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped the traditional
>>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys - it will be in the next
>>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the limited way in which we
>>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart and used as a test script
>>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>>
>>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is that there are very few
>>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off updating the wiki. I've used
>>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that I've done and I do like
>>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think might end up with a more
>>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for Administrators, store clerks,
>>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I have to fit this into
>>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>>
>>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for anyone to use this in any
>>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from participating in this project
>>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a more professional guide
>>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be better created with a number
>>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>>
>>Very best wishes
>>
>>Ian
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>
>>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>>>
>>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be sufficient ?
>>>>
>>>
>>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in Subversion, more people would update
>>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who would have to release the
>>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to choose to include it.
>>>
>>>--
>>>David N. Welton
>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>>
>>>
>>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Users mailing list
>>>[hidden email]
>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Adrian Crum

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

In reply to this post by David E. Jones

I tried contributing to the Wiki, but my contributions would get deleted
everytime someone took it upon themselves to "groom" or "garden" the Wiki site.

I haven't been invited to contribute to the "For Sale" documentation, so I have
no experience with that.

It would be nice to have a system where the community can easily contribute to
the documentation, but not be as "loose" as the Wiki. Maybe more along the lines
of the Jira site - where contributors can freely and easily contribute
documentation, but it doesn't become an official part of the project until
someone reviews it and includes it.

So, that would be my recommendation: set up a site like the Jira (for
documentation only) and have someone like your technical writer review the
submissions and include them in the final "product."

David E. Jones wrote:

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Adrian Crum

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

In reply to this post by BJ Freeman

I like this idea BJ, but online help only works after the installation is
running. It's good to mention this though, because it would be nice to have an
online help system reference the "official" documentation (in whatever form it
becomes) once the installation is running.

Take the database questions that come up frequently as an example. On the
mailing list, users are referred to the Webtools page, Wiki, past mailings, etc.
Let's say that information is collected and distilled into the OFBiz
documentation. If someone is setting up a new installation and OFBiz won't start
because of DB issues, then an online help system won't be of much use. They will
have to access the documentation in some other way. Once the system is up and
running, clicking on Help from the Webtools page would take them to the same DB
documentation they referenced earlier.

BJ Freeman wrote:

> David I agree with the site you have, even as a commercial venture.
> However I believe there should be division between the code that
> supports the site and the data in the site.
>
> I ask about a help framework earlier, that this would answer. However it
> is not to duplicate your data, but to put user specific help based on my
> modification. I doubt my help files would be an any interest, unless my
> mods are being used.
>
> Now if you feel that part of the cost could be re-coupled for the code
> segment, then I believe that should be separate from the actual support
> site you maintain.
>
> Maybe the Code could be such that all but the localize help would go to
> your site.
>
> Just some thoughts.
>
> David E. Jones sent the following on 3/29/06 10:29 AM:
>
>>This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>>
>>Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them, and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not contributing even more.
>>
>>The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either many targets or one moving target to go after...
>>
>>The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component. The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
>>
>>This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site) that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never even get feedback on the documentation.
>>
>>I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
>>
>>Anyway, back the real issue...
>>
>>My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative. Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and better controlled.
>>
>>If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
>>
>>I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.
>>
>>-David
>>
>>
>>
>>Ian Gilbert wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any license but I'm not sure that
>>>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development community (that this doc
>>>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information from (wiki, production
>>>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the Undersun Consulting docs
>>>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the information. Indeed
>>>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have difficulties understanding
>>>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see them using Jira for
>>>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few hundred times). There is
>>>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is understandable because
>>>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have all had a considerable
>>>technical ability and inclination.
>>>
>>>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of sense to write some form of
>>>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I was spending with people
>>>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this (similar books run to 5-600
>>>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped the traditional
>>>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys - it will be in the next
>>>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the limited way in which we
>>>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart and used as a test script
>>>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>>>
>>>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is that there are very few
>>>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off updating the wiki. I've used
>>>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that I've done and I do like
>>>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think might end up with a more
>>>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for Administrators, store clerks,
>>>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I have to fit this into
>>>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>>>
>>>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for anyone to use this in any
>>>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from participating in this project
>>>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a more professional guide
>>>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be better created with a number
>>>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>>>
>>>Very best wishes
>>>
>>>Ian
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>>>>
>>>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be sufficient ?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>>>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in Subversion, more people would update
>>>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who would have to release the
>>>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to choose to include it.
>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>David N. Welton
>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Users mailing list
>>>>[hidden email]
>>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Users mailing list
>>[hidden email]
>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Vinay Agarwal

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

I believe we should focus on developing tools (customized IDE) as much as
documentation. Even if perfect documentation were to be available for OFBiz,
a newbie would still have a very long ramp up time since
1. Documentation for something as complex as OFBiz won't be small.
2. The number of technologies need to be understood are a lot (Java,
minilang, xml, html, javascript, widgets, ftl, ant etc). One has to know
sufficiently about them in order to read the code and make even minor mods.

The best example I have seen an IDE alleviate need for a lot of reading is
Visual Studio which does a good job of making skeleton code for commonly
used but complex tasks. NetBeans 5 has a very basic "code writing"
capability for pure Java. And I understand that IntelliJ IDEA has some
built-in capabilities for some popular frameworks. If we can get an IDE to
build skeleton file/function structure for commonly used items, it would go
a long way to speed up newbies and may even increase efficiency of experts.

Regards,
Vinay Agarwal

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Adrian Crum
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 11:12 AM
To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...

I like this idea BJ, but online help only works after the installation is
running. It's good to mention this though, because it would be nice to have
an
online help system reference the "official" documentation (in whatever form
it
becomes) once the installation is running.

Take the database questions that come up frequently as an example. On the
mailing list, users are referred to the Webtools page, Wiki, past mailings,
etc.
Let's say that information is collected and distilled into the OFBiz
documentation. If someone is setting up a new installation and OFBiz won't
start
because of DB issues, then an online help system won't be of much use. They
will
have to access the documentation in some other way. Once the system is up
and
running, clicking on Help from the Webtools page would take them to the same
DB
documentation they referenced earlier.

BJ Freeman wrote:

end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>>
>>Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the
documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it
in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a
bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them,
and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not
contributing even more.
>>
>>The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more
difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either
many targets or one moving target to go after...
>>
>>The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a
while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component.
The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by
Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
>>
>>This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because
collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so
completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of
documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site)
that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never
even get feedback on the documentation.
>>
>>I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people
say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the
software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of
documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly
as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the
options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion
on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
>>
>>Anyway, back the real issue...
>>
>>My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative.
Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to
the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help
maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and
better controlled.
>>
>>If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access
to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other
alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even
close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily
in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we
believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented
documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
>>
>>I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would
also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts
as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.

>>
>>-David
>>
>>
>>
>>Ian Gilbert wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any

license but I'm not sure that
>>>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development
community (that this doc
>>>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information
from (wiki, production
>>>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the
Undersun Consulting docs
>>>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the
information. Indeed
>>>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have
difficulties understanding
>>>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see
them using Jira for
>>>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few
hundred times). There is
>>>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is
understandable because
>>>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have
all had a considerable
>>>technical ability and inclination.
>>>
>>>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of
sense to write some form of
>>>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I
was spending with people
>>>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this
(similar books run to 5-600
>>>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped
the traditional
>>>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys
- it will be in the next
>>>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the
limited way in which we
>>>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart
and used as a test script
>>>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>>>
>>>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is
that there are very few
>>>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off
updating the wiki. I've used
>>>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that
I've done and I do like
>>>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think
might end up with a more
>>>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for
Administrators, store clerks,
>>>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I
have to fit this into
>>>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>>>
>>>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for
anyone to use this in any
>>>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from
participating in this project
>>>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a
more professional guide
>>>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be
better created with a number

>>>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>>>
>>>Very best wishes
>>>
>>>Ian
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>>>>
>>>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be

sufficient ?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>>>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in
Subversion, more people would update
>>>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who
would have to release the
>>>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to
choose to include it.

>>>>
>>>>--
>>>>David N. Welton
>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>Users mailing list
>>>>[hidden email]
>>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Users mailing list
>>[hidden email]
>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

BJ Freeman

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

In reply to this post by Ian Gilbert-2

I spent years with visual studio.
first I don't like Ms making my job more difficult by adding their
version of everything into what I want todo.

Second it make it more difficult of work with the world at large the gcc
and gcc+

Third the last thing I want to do is be tied to windows.

I prefer something like Eclipse where you can have the code to the IDE
an it uses the complier that started before windows. It supports all
languages, so there is no integration.

Vinay Agarwal sent the following on 3/29/06 3:46 PM:

> I believe we should focus on developing tools (customized IDE) as much as
> documentation. Even if perfect documentation were to be available for OFBiz,
> a newbie would still have a very long ramp up time since
> 1. Documentation for something as complex as OFBiz won't be small.
> 2. The number of technologies need to be understood are a lot (Java,
> minilang, xml, html, javascript, widgets, ftl, ant etc). One has to know
> sufficiently about them in order to read the code and make even minor mods.
>
> The best example I have seen an IDE alleviate need for a lot of reading is
> Visual Studio which does a good job of making skeleton code for commonly
> used but complex tasks. NetBeans 5 has a very basic "code writing"
> capability for pure Java. And I understand that IntelliJ IDEA has some
> built-in capabilities for some popular frameworks. If we can get an IDE to
> build skeleton file/function structure for commonly used items, it would go
> a long way to speed up newbies and may even increase efficiency of experts.
>
> Regards,
> Vinay Agarwal
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
> On Behalf Of Adrian Crum
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 11:12 AM
> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...
>
> I like this idea BJ, but online help only works after the installation is
> running. It's good to mention this though, because it would be nice to have
> an
> online help system reference the "official" documentation (in whatever form
> it
> becomes) once the installation is running.
>
> Take the database questions that come up frequently as an example. On the
> mailing list, users are referred to the Webtools page, Wiki, past mailings,
> etc.
> Let's say that information is collected and distilled into the OFBiz
> documentation. If someone is setting up a new installation and OFBiz won't
> start
> because of DB issues, then an online help system won't be of much use. They
> will
> have to access the documentation in some other way. Once the system is up
> and
> running, clicking on Help from the Webtools page would take them to the same
> DB
> documentation they referenced earlier.
>
>
> BJ Freeman wrote:
>
>
>>David I agree with the site you have, even as a commercial venture.
>>However I believe there should be division between the code that
>>supports the site and the data in the site.
>>
>>I ask about a help framework earlier, that this would answer. However it
>>is not to duplicate your data, but to put user specific help based on my
>>modification. I doubt my help files would be an any interest, unless my
>>mods are being used.
>>
>>Now if you feel that part of the cost could be re-coupled for the code
>>segment, then I believe that should be separate from the actual support
>>site you maintain.
>>
>>Maybe the Code could be such that all but the localize help would go to
>>your site.
>>
>>Just some thoughts.
>>
>>David E. Jones sent the following on 3/29/06 10:29 AM:
>>
>>
>>>This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage
>
> end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>
>>>Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the
>
> documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it
> in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a
> bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them,
> and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not
> contributing even more.
>
>>>The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more
>
> difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either
> many targets or one moving target to go after...
>
>>>The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a
>
> while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component.
> The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by
> Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
>
>>>This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because
>
> collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so
> completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of
> documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site)
> that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never
> even get feedback on the documentation.
>
>>>I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people
>
> say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the
> software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of
> documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly
> as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the
> options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion
> on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
> Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
>
>>>Anyway, back the real issue...
>>>
>>>My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative.
>
> Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to
> the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help
> maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and
> better controlled.
>
>>>If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access
>
> to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other
> alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even
> close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily
> in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we
> believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented
> documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
>
>>>I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would
>
> also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts
> as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.
>
>>>-David
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Ian Gilbert wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi All,
>>>>
>>>>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any
>
> license but I'm not sure that
>
>>>>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development
>
> community (that this doc
>
>>>>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information
>
> from (wiki, production
>
>>>>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the
>
> Undersun Consulting docs
>
>>>>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the
>
> information. Indeed
>
>>>>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have
>
> difficulties understanding
>
>>>>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see
>
> them using Jira for
>
>>>>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few
>
> hundred times). There is
>
>>>>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is
>
> understandable because
>
>>>>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have
>
> all had a considerable
>
>>>>technical ability and inclination.
>>>>
>>>>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of
>
> sense to write some form of
>
>>>>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I
>
> was spending with people
>
>>>>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this
>
> (similar books run to 5-600
>
>>>>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped
>
> the traditional
>
>>>>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys
>
> - it will be in the next
>
>>>>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the
>
> limited way in which we
>
>>>>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart
>
> and used as a test script
>
>>>>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>>>>
>>>>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is
>
> that there are very few
>
>>>>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off
>
> updating the wiki. I've used
>
>>>>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that
>
> I've done and I do like
>
>>>>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think
>
> might end up with a more
>
>>>>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for
>
> Administrators, store clerks,
>
>>>>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I
>
> have to fit this into
>
>>>>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>>>>
>>>>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for
>
> anyone to use this in any
>
>>>>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from
>
> participating in this project
>
>>>>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a
>
> more professional guide
>
>>>>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be
>
> better created with a number
>
>>>>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>>>>
>>>>Very best wishes
>>>>
>>>>Ian
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be
>
> sufficient ?
>
>>>>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>>>>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in
>
> Subversion, more people would update
>
>>>>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who
>
> would have to release the
>
>>>>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to
>
> choose to include it.
>
>>>>>--
>>>>>David N. Welton
>>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
>>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>Users mailing list
>>>>>[hidden email]
>>>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Users mailing list
>>>[hidden email]
>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Users mailing list
>>[hidden email]
>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Vinay Agarwal

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

Visual Studio is an example and only that. It obviously won't work for OFBiz
because it doesn't do Java. Out of Java IDEs, IntelliJ is the highest rated
although I have not worked on it. Personally I have found NetBeans 5 to be
better than Eclipse for two reasons--Eclipse seems to leak memory on my
Windows XP and NetBeans has much better code assistance.

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of BJ Freeman
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 3:59 PM
To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...

I spent years with visual studio.
first I don't like Ms making my job more difficult by adding their
version of everything into what I want todo.

Second it make it more difficult of work with the world at large the gcc
and gcc+

Third the last thing I want to do is be tied to windows.

I prefer something like Eclipse where you can have the code to the IDE
an it uses the complier that started before windows. It supports all
languages, so there is no integration.

Vinay Agarwal sent the following on 3/29/06 3:46 PM:
> I believe we should focus on developing tools (customized IDE) as much as
> documentation. Even if perfect documentation were to be available for
OFBiz,
> a newbie would still have a very long ramp up time since
> 1. Documentation for something as complex as OFBiz won't be small.
> 2. The number of technologies need to be understood are a lot (Java,
> minilang, xml, html, javascript, widgets, ftl, ant etc). One has to know
> sufficiently about them in order to read the code and make even minor
mods.
>
> The best example I have seen an IDE alleviate need for a lot of reading is
> Visual Studio which does a good job of making skeleton code for commonly
> used but complex tasks. NetBeans 5 has a very basic "code writing"
> capability for pure Java. And I understand that IntelliJ IDEA has some
> built-in capabilities for some popular frameworks. If we can get an IDE to
> build skeleton file/function structure for commonly used items, it would
go
> a long way to speed up newbies and may even increase efficiency of
experts.

>
> Regards,
> Vinay Agarwal
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
> On Behalf Of Adrian Crum
> Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 11:12 AM
> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...
>
> I like this idea BJ, but online help only works after the installation is
> running. It's good to mention this though, because it would be nice to

have
> an
> online help system reference the "official" documentation (in whatever
form
> it
> becomes) once the installation is running.
>
> Take the database questions that come up frequently as an example. On the
> mailing list, users are referred to the Webtools page, Wiki, past
mailings,
> etc.
> Let's say that information is collected and distilled into the OFBiz
> documentation. If someone is setting up a new installation and OFBiz won't
> start
> because of DB issues, then an online help system won't be of much use.
They
> will
> have to access the documentation in some other way. Once the system is up
> and
> running, clicking on Help from the Webtools page would take them to the
same

> DB
> documentation they referenced earlier.
>
>
> BJ Freeman wrote:
>
>
>>David I agree with the site you have, even as a commercial venture.
>>However I believe there should be division between the code that
>>supports the site and the data in the site.
>>
>>I ask about a help framework earlier, that this would answer. However it
>>is not to duplicate your data, but to put user specific help based on my
>>modification. I doubt my help files would be an any interest, unless my
>>mods are being used.
>>
>>Now if you feel that part of the cost could be re-coupled for the code
>>segment, then I believe that should be separate from the actual support
>>site you maintain.
>>
>>Maybe the Code could be such that all but the localize help would go to
>>your site.
>>
>>Just some thoughts.
>>
>>David E. Jones sent the following on 3/29/06 10:29 AM:
>>
>>
>>>This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage
>
> end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>
>>>Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the
>
> documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it
> in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a
> bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them,
> and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not
> contributing even more.
>
>>>The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more
>
> difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are

either
> many targets or one moving target to go after...
>
>>>The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a
>
> while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content
component.
> The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by
> Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
>
>>>This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because
>
> collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so
> completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of
> documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org
site)
> that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost
never
> even get feedback on the documentation.
>
>>>I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people
>
> say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of
the
> software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of
> documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly
> as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and
the
> options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion
> on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
> Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
>
>>>Anyway, back the real issue...
>>>
>>>My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more
collaborative.
>
> Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to
> the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help
> maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent
and

> better controlled.
>
>>>If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access
>
> to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other
> alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even
> close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily
> in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we
> believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented
> documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
>
>>>I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would
>
> also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts
> as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.
>
>>>-David
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Ian Gilbert wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Hi All,
>>>>
>>>>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any
>
> license but I'm not sure that
>
>>>>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development
>
> community (that this doc
>
>>>>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information
>
> from (wiki, production
>
>>>>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the
>
> Undersun Consulting docs
>
>>>>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in

the
>
> information. Indeed
>
>>>>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have
>
> difficulties understanding
>
>>>>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot
see
>
> them using Jira for
>
>>>>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few
>
> hundred times). There is
>
>>>>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this
is
>
> understandable because
>
>>>>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far
have

>
> all had a considerable
>
>>>>technical ability and inclination.
>>>>
>>>>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of
>
> sense to write some form of
>
>>>>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that

>
> was spending with people
>
>>>>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this
>
> (similar books run to 5-600
>
>>>>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped
>
> the traditional
>
>>>>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys
>
> - it will be in the next
>
>>>>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the
>
> limited way in which we
>
>>>>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart
>
> and used as a test script
>
>>>>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>>>>
>>>>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way

>
> that there are very few
>
>>>>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off
>
> updating the wiki. I've used
>
>>>>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that
>
> I've done and I do like
>
>>>>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think
>
> might end up with a more
>
>>>>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for
>
> Administrators, store clerks,
>
>>>>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but

>
> have to fit this into
>
>>>>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>>>>
>>>>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for
>
> anyone to use this in any
>
>>>>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from
>
> participating in this project
>
>>>>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a
>
> more professional guide
>
>>>>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be
>
> better created with a number
>
>>>>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>>>>
>>>>Very best wishes
>>>>
>>>>Ian
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be
>
> sufficient ?
>
>>>>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>>>>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in
>
> Subversion, more people would update
>
>>>>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who
>
> would have to release the
>
>>>>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to
>
> choose to include it.
>
>>>>>--
>>>>>David N. Welton
>>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
>>>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>_______________________________________________
>>>>>Users mailing list
>>>>>[hidden email]
>>>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Users mailing list
>>>[hidden email]
>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Users mailing list
>>[hidden email]
>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

davidnwelton

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

In reply to this post by David E. Jones

On 3/29/06, David E. Jones <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>
> Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them, and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not contributing even more.

I suggested including this documentation because:

1) It exists.
2) It's helpful.
3) The author is willing to release it under a suitable license.

Perhaps it's not perfect, but it seems like a reasonable guide to
doing basic things in OFBiz, which is a good starting point for
anyone, whether they intend to hack things at a low level or not.

The idea is to take what exists and run with it, rather than spend too
much time worrying about how things ought to be. Perhaps you can even
manage to rope Ian into doing more documentation?:-)

I realize there is some complexity in the situation... A successful
strategy for other open source projects has been to have basic
reference manuals that are free, and then people write books for those
who want more handholding/a more expository approach. The problem, of
course, is bootstrapping things to the point where there is interest
in the book... hopefully moving to the ASF will help with that, but I
also think that some basic docs like Ian's wouldn't hurt, for people
approaching the system for the first time - perhaps they would help
'capture' a larger portion of people investigating OFBiz, with the
accompanying virtuous circle that that entails if some of those
people, in turn, contribute back in some way.

In any case, just an idea...

--
David N. Welton
- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/

Linux, Open Source Consulting
- http://www.dedasys.com/

_______________________________________________
Users mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

Scott Gray

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

In reply to this post by Adrian Crum

Hi

I like the way the mysql documentation works, people can add comments, tips,
etc. at the bottom of each page and then every now and again someone could
come along and integrate the useful comments into the page itself (people
could possibly even vote for comments that they found useful). That way
people can easily add things without having to worry about formatting and
grammar, and then an editor can oversee the growth of the formal docs.

Regards
Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
On Behalf Of Adrian Crum
Sent: Thursday, 30 March 2006 7:05 a.m.
To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...

I tried contributing to the Wiki, but my contributions would get deleted
everytime someone took it upon themselves to "groom" or "garden" the Wiki
site.

I haven't been invited to contribute to the "For Sale" documentation, so I
have
no experience with that.

It would be nice to have a system where the community can easily contribute
to
the documentation, but not be as "loose" as the Wiki. Maybe more along the
lines
of the Jira site - where contributors can freely and easily contribute
documentation, but it doesn't become an official part of the project until
someone reviews it and includes it.

So, that would be my recommendation: set up a site like the Jira (for
documentation only) and have someone like your technical writer review the
submissions and include them in the final "product."

David E. Jones wrote:

> This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage
end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
>
> Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the
documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it
in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a
bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them,
and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not
contributing even more.
>
> The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more
difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either
many targets or one moving target to go after...
>
> The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a
while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component.
The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by
Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
>
> This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because
collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so
completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of
documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site)
that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never
even get feedback on the documentation.
>
> I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people
say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the
software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of
documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly
as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the
options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion
on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
>
> Anyway, back the real issue...
>
> My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative.
Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to
the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help
maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and
better controlled.
>
> If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access
to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other
alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even
close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily
in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we
believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented
documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
>
> I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would
also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts
as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.

>
> -David
>
>
>
> Ian Gilbert wrote:
>
>>Hi All,
>>
>>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any

license but I'm not sure that
>>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development
community (that this doc
>>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information
from (wiki, production
>>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the
Undersun Consulting docs
>>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the
information. Indeed
>>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have
difficulties understanding
>>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see
them using Jira for
>>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few
hundred times). There is
>>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is
understandable because
>>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have
all had a considerable
>>technical ability and inclination.
>>
>>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of
sense to write some form of
>>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I
was spending with people
>>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this
(similar books run to 5-600
>>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped
the traditional
>>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys -
it will be in the next
>>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the
limited way in which we
>>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart and
used as a test script
>>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
>>
>>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is
that there are very few
>>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off
updating the wiki. I've used
>>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that
I've done and I do like
>>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think
might end up with a more
>>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for
Administrators, store clerks,
>>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I
have to fit this into
>>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
>>
>>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for
anyone to use this in any
>>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from
participating in this project
>>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a
more professional guide
>>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be better
created with a number

>>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
>>
>>Very best wishes
>>
>>Ian
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
>>
>>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
>>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
>>>>
>>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be

sufficient ?
>>>>
>>>
>>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
>>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in
Subversion, more people would update
>>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who
would have to release the
>>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to
choose to include it.

>>>
>>>--
>>>David N. Welton
>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>>>
>>>
>>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
>>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
>>>
>>>
>>>_______________________________________________
>>>Users mailing list
>>>[hidden email]
>>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>

Andrew Sykes

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

Postgres does something similar, but you can elect whether to view the
additional comments or not, which I like, because I never do view them.

Not sure that's a vote of confidence for that system, just an
observation!

Andrew

On Thu, 2006-03-30 at 22:08 +1200, Scott Gray wrote:

> Hi
>
> I like the way the mysql documentation works, people can add comments, tips,
> etc. at the bottom of each page and then every now and again someone could
> come along and integrate the useful comments into the page itself (people
> could possibly even vote for comments that they found useful). That way
> people can easily add things without having to worry about formatting and
> grammar, and then an editor can oversee the growth of the formal docs.
>
> Regards
> Scott
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]]
> On Behalf Of Adrian Crum
> Sent: Thursday, 30 March 2006 7:05 a.m.
> To: OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion
> Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...
>
> I tried contributing to the Wiki, but my contributions would get deleted
> everytime someone took it upon themselves to "groom" or "garden" the Wiki
> site.
>
> I haven't been invited to contribute to the "For Sale" documentation, so I
> have
> no experience with that.
>
> It would be nice to have a system where the community can easily contribute
> to
> the documentation, but not be as "loose" as the Wiki. Maybe more along the
> lines
> of the Jira site - where contributors can freely and easily contribute
> documentation, but it doesn't become an official part of the project until
> someone reviews it and includes it.
>
> So, that would be my recommendation: set up a site like the Jira (for
> documentation only) and have someone like your technical writer review the
> submissions and include them in the final "product."
>
>
> David E. Jones wrote:
>
> > This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage
> end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
> >
> > Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the
> documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it
> in place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a
> bit, it confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them,
> and often leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not
> contributing even more.
> >
> > The eventual form of the documentation is another problem, made more
> difficult by the fact that depending on how you look at it there are either
> many targets or one moving target to go after...
> >
> > The Undersun documentation site is something Andy and I started pushing a
> while back and is built (mostly by Al Byers) on the OFBiz content component.
> The actual content (images and text) are maintained and mostly written by
> Les who is a technical writer we are contracting with to maintain it.
> >
> > This is commercial rather than collaborative in nature because
> collaborative attempts in the past at OFBiz documentation have failed so
> completely that nothing has been written except isolated pockets of
> documentation (including the "official" documentation on the ofbiz.org site)
> that we not only don't get many (or any) contributions, but we almost never
> even get feedback on the documentation.
> >
> > I think this is largely by the nature of documentation. When most people
> say they want "documentation" what they really want is understanding of the
> software either technical or business and end user level. The hope of
> documentation is to get people to those points of understanding as quickly
> as possible, but initially even seeing the size of the documentation and the
> options available can be a serious "gumption trap". For a great discussion
> on gumption traps I recommend the book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
> Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.
> >
> > Anyway, back the real issue...
> >
> > My hope with the Undersun site is that it would become more collaborative.
> Those who are interested in contributing have been given free accounts to
> the site. We have a nearly full-time technical writer on contract to help
> maintain the information so that it can hopefully remain more consistent and
> better controlled.
> >
> > If people object to the commercial nature of it, ie we charge for access
> to the site on a subscription basis, then that's fine. If there are other
> alternative it would be great. So far the site is not profitable, not even
> close to profitable. In fact, Andy and I subsidize the site pretty heavily
> in hopes that someday it will pay for itself, and in the mean time we
> believe it is important to the success of OFBiz to have end-user oriented
> documentation, and so we continue to invest what little we can in it.
> >
> > I would appreciate any feedback anyone might have. In general it would
> also be great to see more invested in this and other documentation efforts
> as it is one of a few areas of OFBiz that could use some work.
> >
> > -David
> >
> >
> >
> > Ian Gilbert wrote:
> >
> >>Hi All,
> >>
> >>I'm glad they are popular :) I am happy to release these under any
> license but I'm not sure that
> >>this will have the desired effect. My reasoning is that the development
> community (that this doc
> >>is not really targeted at) has a range of resources to pull information
> from (wiki, production
> >>guide, mailing lists, intro docs on the Open Source Strategies site, the
> Undersun Consulting docs
> >>etc.,) but most of my users are non tech and would simply get lost in the
> information. Indeed
> >>they would not even consider contributing back and probably would have
> difficulties understanding
> >>the concept. Certainly there would be hurdles to stop them (I cannot see
> them using Jira for
> >>example although I can see them deluging me with the same emails a few
> hundred times). There is
> >>not too much user orientated resource available at the moment but this is
> understandable because
> >>the type of business user who has got involved in the project so far have
> all had a considerable
> >>technical ability and inclination.
> >>
> >>We have quite a high turnover of people at ES and so it made a lot of
> sense to write some form of
> >>training or user reference doc simply to reduce the amount of time that I
> was spending with people
> >>on the same questions. I think that there is still lots to do on this
> (similar books run to 5-600
> >>pages in the shops so I'm not going to stop now ;) Granted I've skipped
> the traditional
> >>'Introduction to the Internet' which most of them have (don't worry guys -
> it will be in the next
> >>version) but even so there is a huge amount still to cover even with the
> limited way in which we
> >>use Ofbiz. I was also keen to create a doc that could be pulled apart and
> used as a test script
> >>as much of the UAT we do is much easier that way.
> >>
> >>The reason I don't think it will work in the community in the same way is
> that there are very few
> >>end users (or appear to be) on the list that wouldn't be better off
> updating the wiki. I've used
> >>Open Office to create the DocBook format (it was the first of these that
> I've done and I do like
> >>it but would like to use another editor to create new tags which I think
> might end up with a more
> >>flexible document (i.e. use one document root to create sub docs for
> Administrators, store clerks,
> >>accounts team etc., which should be quite straightforward with xml) but I
> have to fit this into
> >>gaps between contracts like the one I've got right now.
> >>
> >>That said I'm happy for this to be released under any license and for
> anyone to use this in any
> >>way they see fit. Considering the value that ES and I have had from
> participating in this project
> >>it really is the least I can do. At some point I would like to write a
> more professional guide
> >>and ideally have it published properly. I think that this would be better
> created with a number
> >>of authors simply because the subject is so big.
> >>
> >>Very best wishes
> >>
> >>Ian
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>On Wed, March 29, 2006 12:28, David Welton wrote:
> >>
> >>>>>Yes, nice job indeed. It would be good to see something like this
> >>>>>distributed with OFBiz itself.
> >>>>
> >>>>Yes, or maybe a link from official OFBiz site (Doc tab) will be
> sufficient ?
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>As the years go by, stuff that doesn't get held together tends to
> >>>float apart (bit rot). Perhaps if the DocBook sources were in
> Subversion, more people would update
> >>>them and add to them, as well. However, this is a decision for Ian, who
> would have to release the
> >>>docs under a suitable license, and the developers, who would have to
> choose to include it.
> >>>
> >>>--
> >>>David N. Welton
> >>>- http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Linux, Open Source Consulting
> >>>- http://www.dedasys.com/
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>Users mailing list
> >>>[hidden email]
> >>>http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Users mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> [hidden email]
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--
Kind Regards
Andrew Sykes <[hidden email]>
Sykes Development Ltd
http://www.sykesdevelopment.com

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Jacques Le Roux

Re: Users - Updated documentation ...

Administrator

In reply to this post by davidnwelton

Here I have to mention that I also did a doc last year.

Argh :( in french ;o) :
http://www.les7arts.com/assist/OFBiz/Creation%20Catalogue%20de%20produits.pdf

For me the bible is always :
http://www.undersunconsulting.com/static/OFBizBasicProductionSetup.pdf

Even if, yes, it's not very user oriented...

And Ray made also a beautiful documentation for POS :
http://ofbizwiki.go-integral.com/attach/PointOfSaleSystem/Till+Manual_V1_7.pdf

Jacques

----- Original Message -----
From: "David Welton" <[hidden email]>
To: "OFBiz Users / Usage Discussion" <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2006 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: [OFBiz] Users - Updated documentation ...

> On 3/29/06, David E. Jones <[hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> > This does bring up an interesting discussion point: how should we manage
end-user oriented documentation (and other documentation too...)?
> >
> > Notice that I did _not_ ask what would everyone like to see in the
documentation... that is a moot point without a way to go about getting it in
place. I'd rather not talk about that as it has been discussed quite a bit, it
confuses the point of how to get things done and who will do them, and often
leads to blaming those who have contributed to OFBiz for not contributing even
more.

>
> I suggested including this documentation because:
>
> 1) It exists.
> 2) It's helpful.
> 3) The author is willing to release it under a suitable license.
>
> Perhaps it's not perfect, but it seems like a reasonable guide to
> doing basic things in OFBiz, which is a good starting point for
> anyone, whether they intend to hack things at a low level or not.
>
> The idea is to take what exists and run with it, rather than spend too
> much time worrying about how things ought to be. Perhaps you can even
> manage to rope Ian into doing more documentation?:-)
>
> I realize there is some complexity in the situation... A successful
> strategy for other open source projects has been to have basic
> reference manuals that are free, and then people write books for those
> who want more handholding/a more expository approach. The problem, of
> course, is bootstrapping things to the point where there is interest
> in the book... hopefully moving to the ASF will help with that, but I
> also think that some basic docs like Ian's wouldn't hurt, for people
> approaching the system for the first time - perhaps they would help
> 'capture' a larger portion of people investigating OFBiz, with the
> accompanying virtuous circle that that entails if some of those
> people, in turn, contribute back in some way.
>
> In any case, just an idea...
>
> --
> David N. Welton
> - http://www.dedasys.com/davidw/
>
> Linux, Open Source Consulting
> - http://www.dedasys.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Users mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.ofbiz.org/mailman/listinfo/users

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